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Land around the BankAtlantic Center is part of the Florida Panthers’ new development proposal.

Darcie Lunsford and Daniel Kaplan

The scope is immense: 4,800 residential units; 950,000 square feet of retail space; 1,450 hotel rooms, 1.85 million square feet of offices and a Broadway-style theater that’s more than three times the size of the Broward Center for Performing Arts.

Welcome to Oz, the real estate development that owners of the Florida Panthers hockey franchise are now proposing. The plan is to build the mixed-use district on the 139 acres that surround the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise.

The first details of the plan are emerging as the team’s parent company, Sunrise Sports & Entertainment (SSE), engages in negotiations to merge the team, its arena management company and rights to the real estate surrounding the BankAtlantic Center with Sports Properties Acquisition Corp., a public-stock company formed last year, sources said.

The potential deal values the assets at $230 million, including debt, with the plum in the talks being the possibility of developing the site around the arena, said sources, who also noted that negotiations have been taking place over the last several weeks.

But, both a merger and future site development deal are likely to need Broward County approval to move ahead, according to Dick Brossard, interim deputy Broward County administrator. The county owns the land and the arena, which it leases to the Panthers.

“That would be a lease assignment and would require county commission approval to amend the existing lease and operating agreement,” Brossard said.

He said that, to his knowledge, the county has not been approached by the Panthers about a potential merger, and has seen no formal proposal for developing the parking lots that surround BankAtlantic Center.

But, Panthers owners on Feb. 26 had a pre-application conference with the South Florida Regional Planning Council to lay the groundwork required to get entitlements to build Oz, according to council documents, which provided the first detailed summary of the plan.

Team owners have also been meeting with local government officials to gauge their level of acceptance for the entertainment and commercial district.

“A concept has been presented to us that they would like to do a theater district with multi-use [development],” Sunrise Deputy Mayor Donald Rosen said, noting that the city, which gave the land to county to build the arena, “can’t do anything unless the county says it is a go.”

At the heart of the project is a Broadway-style theater to be operated by the New York-based Nederlander Organization, which runs about 30 theaters worldwide. President James L. Nederlander became an SSE partner last year, but provided no details about when Oz may rise.

“Right now, there is nothing I can talk about,” he said.

A project of such magnitude would likely have to be phased, according to government officials and real estate watchers. And the troubled economy would likely play a leading role in the timing of that.

PROJECT FINANCING IS UNCLEAR

It is unclear how the project would be financed, but last year, when SSE first began rolling out its plan to develop the arena land, it said it planned to secure private financing for the development or could seek industrial development revenue bonds and affordable housing bonds, which require no financial commitment from the county.

“I would call it ambitious,” Stiles Realty President Tom Kates said of Oz’s scale. “Obviously, the catalyst is the arena.”

He said the project is certainly viable in that location, but could be considered dense for its suburban venue.

The nearby Sawgrass International Corporate Park houses about 4 million square feet of commercial space on 612 acres.

Sunrise Mayor Roger Wishner said he is reserving judgment on the Oz project until he sees a detailed proposal. But, generally, he said it stands to be a strong economic engine.

“Certainly, based on the conversations and discussions I have heard, the theater … would be a first-class theater located here, and this would draw a tremendous population,” Wisher said.

According to the City of Oz Web site, the project would create an estimated 13,478 total new jobs in South Florida with a $226 million annual payroll at the job site and a overall $443 million annual payroll across the region, not including the theater.

The question now for officials is whether a merger will be a game changer.

Sports Properties raised $215 million last year in an IPO for the purpose of buying companies in sports and leisure. Under federal securities rules, it has until Jan. 17 to complete a deal or the money is returned to the shareholders.

Andrew Murstein, the financier spearheading the company and who owns 18.1 percent of it, declined to comment, citing federal stock regulations that prohibit him from discussing unannounced transactions. The Panthers also declined to comment.

As part of the prospective deal, the sources said, the Panthers’ owners would receive stock in Sports Properties, making the hockey team a unit of the public company. The team was publicly held before former owner H. Wayne Huizenga sold it in 2001 to current general partner Alan Cohen for $101 million. Cohen is the founder of generic pharmaceutical concerns, most notably Davie-based Andrx Corp., which was purchased by Watson Pharmaceuticals in 2006.

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